Horse & Hound
Puppies of Two Species
Four-year-old Trevor (left) meets one-year-old Driver (right).
Courtesy of Full Cry: A Hound Blog
WHAT a beautiful day Saturday was! It started with a crashing thunderstorm that prevented me from riding over to catch our trailer ride to the day's hound walk, so we houndbloggers went out with the hounds on foot for what turned out to be a Very Special Morning.
Iroquois huntsman Lilla Mason brought the hounds, including one-year-old Driver and many of the BA litter, to Boone Valley Farm instead of to the usual meeting point on the farm across from The Corners. The change of location was exciting to the hounds. The older hounds, Paper among them now, associate Boone Valley with nearby Pauline's Ridge, one of the richest coyote coverts in the hunt country and understandably a place that holds great interest for experienced hunting hounds.
To the puppies, the field trip was especially exciting. New sights, sounds, and, most importantly, scents! New country to explore!
Video Link
Ring in the Season!
Want your cell phone to ring like this (click the horn)? Foxhunting Life invites you to ring in the new hunting season with free hunting horn ring-tones! Select and download the calls of your choice for your cell phone, courtesy of two-time National Horn Blowing Champion John Tabachka, huntsman for the Deep Run Hunt (VA). (Just remember to turn your ringer off in the hunting field, or we’ll all be in trouble!) You may choose doubling, gone away, gone to ground, or whip-to-me—all calls from John’s popular FHL video—and download them directly to your computer. If your phone does not have computer connectivity, we can send a text message containing the audio files directly to your cell phone, which you can save to your list of ring-tones. If we do not already have your e-mail address, you will be asked to enter it before downloading files. We will use your e-mail address to send you our periodic e-letters with the latest postings and news on Foxhunting Life. Remember, you can unsubscribe at any time, and keep your free foxhunting ring-tone. Get your ring-tones now! FHL wishes you a safe and enjoyable hunting season. Share this with your friends using the “share” button below to email, Tweet it, post to Facebook, and more. {sharethis}... This content is for subscribers only.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here
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Ring in the Season!
Want your cell phone to ring like this (click the horn)? Foxhunting Life invites you to ring in the new hunting season with free hunting horn ring-tones! Select and download the calls of your choice for your cell phone, courtesy of two-time National Horn Blowing Champion John Tabachka, huntsman for the Deep Run Hunt (VA). (Just remember to turn your ringer off in the hunting field, or we’ll all be in trouble!) You may choose doubling, gone away, gone to ground, or whip-to-me—all calls from John’s popular FHL video—and download them directly to your computer. If your phone does not have computer connectivity, we can send a text message containing the audio files directly to your cell phone, which you can save to your list of ring-tones. If we do not already have your e-mail address, you will be asked to enter it before downloading files. We will use your e-mail address to send you our periodic e-letters with the latest postings and news on Foxhunting Life. Remember, you can unsubscribe at any time, and keep your free foxhunting ring-tone. Get your ring-tones now! FHL wishes you a safe and enjoyable hunting season. Share this with your friends using the “share” button below to email, Tweet it, post to Facebook, and more. {sharethis}... This content is for subscribers only.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here
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The Road Warriors: Day Twelve
John makes a sign for the truck window: East Coast or Bust
Photojournalist Betsy Parker, her friend Beth Rera, and Beth’s seven-year-old son John embarked some days ago on a cross-country horse-hauling odyssey—Virginia to California—to include a West Coast summer vacation tour. Since Betsy can be counted on for compelling copy and excellent photography, FHL decided to go along for the ride. Betsy’s earlier reports may be found under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu/Travel.
Beth was the one who first noticed.
Since Utah on the way out, we’ve been in high desert sierra or rocky mountain morraine. It is beautiful out west, but verdant and lush it isn’t.
Yesterday we stopped over at a horse hotel just west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. We’ve grown accustomed to the western horse-keeping style: outdoor covered stall attached to a twelve-by-twelve-square-foot paddock. And that’s all. No communal pastures, not a blade of grass, no group turnout. It’s not wrong or bad, just different.
Walter Pady, ex-MFH (1933–2010)
Walter Pady (right) was photographed recently with fellow Canadian 3-day team members John Rumble (left) and Brian Herbinson. Denya Massey Clarke (also shown) is the daughter of the late Stewart Treviranus, another team member of the three here. -Andrew Clarke photo Walter James Pady, ex-MFH of the Toronto and North York Hunt (ON) was killed tragically in an automobile accident on Monday, August 9, 2010. Walter, 77, was well-known and much loved throughout the world of horses and hunting. He was a member of the first Canadian Olympic Three-Day Team, served as voluntary Chair of the Canadian Jumping Team, CEO of the Royal Winter Fair, and as Canadian District Representative to the MFHA. In recent years he was a member of the Eglinton and Caledon Hunt (ON) and an honorary whipper-in to the Pond Hill Beagles, his wife Jane’s foot pack. Marilyn Mackay-Smith recalled the occasion in 1953 when Walter Pady and equestrian icon John Rumble introduced the Three-Day format to the Canadian Pony Club Rally for the first time. The Canadian Pony Club uses that format to this day, and the U.S. Pony Club followed suit. Walter was a welcome visitor in many hunting countries between Ontario and the Carolinas, when visiting during the closed winter season at home. Likewise, he showed hospitality to many foxhunters from other hunts when the Canadian hunts put on their Ontario Festivals of Hunting. Walter was a sportsman and a gentleman, and he will be sorely missed.August 15, 2010... This content is for subscribers only.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here
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National Sporting Library Presents Symposium on Hunting Dogs
John Emms, oil on canvas, collection National Sporting Library and Museum
The National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg, Virginia, will host a full-day symposium "Lives of Dogs: Origins & Evolution of Hunting & Sporting Breeds" from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 23, 2010. An international panel of six speakers, moderated by Timothy J. Greenan, M.D., will trace the history of hunting with dogs from prehistory through the present day. The symposium, made possible by the gift of an anonymous donor, is part of the Library’s Public Lecture Series, and coincides with the exhibition "Lives of Dogs, Viewed through Literature, Art, & Ephemera" on view through December 11, 2010.
The Road Warriors: Day Eleven
Betsy Parker
Photojournalist Betsy Parker, her friend Beth Rera, and Beth’s seven-year-old son John embarked some days ago on a cross-country horse-hauling odyssey—Virginia to California—to include a West Coast summer vacation tour. Since summer vacation appealed to us as well, and since Betsy can be counted on for compelling copy, FHL decided to go along for the virtual ride. Betsy’s earlier reports may be found under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu/Travel
I anticipated that today’s adventure at Universal Studios in Hollywood would be so...o...o different, and far less real than last week’s adventure in breathtaking Yosemite National Park. After all, how antipodean....
Yosemite: Natural splendor—one million-plus acres of untrammeled grandeur, the very definition of real.
Universal: Unnaturally gaudy—less than 100 acres, a crush of humanity, miles of pavement, cartoonish reality at the heart of a Hollywood facade.
Still, after you take a good, hard look, you end up with—surprisingly—plenty of the same thing. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The Road Warriors: Days Eight, Nine and Ten
Glacier Point, nearly 7,500 feet, rises from the 4,000-foot valley floor. The trail, long and arduous, snakes along its face, but the view from the top is grand.
Photojournalist Betsy Parker, her friend Beth Rera, and Beth’s seven-year-old son John embarked some days ago on a cross-country horse-hauling odyssey—Virginia to California—to include a West Coast summer vacation tour. Since Betsy can be counted on for compelling copy and excellent photography, FHL went along for the ride. Betsy’s earlier reports may be found under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu/Travel.
I will compress the last three-and-a-half days of epic tourism into tidy note form. Any of these subjects is deserving of its own report, if not chapter, and in some cases a volume, but I’ll keep to the strictest of pyramid-style reporting.
Left Merced hotel midmorning Tuesday to get to Crane Flat in Yosemite—the only walk-in campground within the Yosemite National Park with any chance of getting a site without twelve-month advance reservations. Pretty drive in, through California farmland. We left the valley about forty miles out from the park and began rising steadily, through changing elevation/topography/flora and, I’m sure, fauna. It got downright breathtaking, with valley views and granite outcroppings after we entered the park proper (Yosemite National Park is surrounded by a million acres of National Forest.)
Harry Worcester-Smith and the Westmeath Foxhounds
The Westmeath Foxhounds based in the midlands of Ireland was founded in 1854 and is one of the most popular
Grafton Staff in Ireland: Tom Jenner on Sir Ritchie, Harry Worcester-Smith on Success, Jackie Brown on The Cad
foxhunting packs in Ireland. They have had a distinguished succession of Joint-Masters over the years, but one of the most flamboyant arrived at the Irish kennels from the USA in 1912 with a retinue that caused quite a stir in the neighbourhood.
The new Master’s entourage included sixteen Thoroughbred horses, a pack of American hounds, five African-American grooms, a yellow open-top sports car, a yellow sulky, and three fighting cocks. His name was Harry Worcester-Smith, MFH of the Grafton Hounds in Massachusetts. He was even better known for the 1905 Great Foxhound Match in the Piedmont Valley with Mr. Alexander Henry Higginson’s English hounds, mainly of Fernie origin.
Farmington Hunt Puppy Show 2010
(L-R) Marksman and Marmite, best dog and best bitch
The annual Farmington Hunt Puppy Show was held at noon on Sunday, the first of many hot days of summer 2010, June 20th at the kennels. Pimm's Cup and other cool refreshments were served ringside by Forbes and Sherry Reback, and a post-show luncheon was served at the clubhouse by former club president B.J. Korol, with help from Kay Barquin, Shelly Thompson, and secretary and social co-chair Pattie Boden.
The hunt staff, Daron and Alison Beeney and kennelman Tom McCauley made sure the grounds were in beautiful shape for the event that welcomed a good crowd of members, visitors from out of town, and the Free Union neighborhood. Guest judges were Mrs. Phelps S. Hunter, ex-MFH of Los Altos Hounds (CA), and Martyn Blackmore, huntsman for the Loudoun West Hunt.
